That said, the Infinite Frontier maxiseries currently being published (#4 came out in the last week or so) is following up on these threads directly - building up to whatever the next big event is - so who knows what continuity twists DC has in store for us over the next couple of years.This is the second edition of How to Make Comics, a series for teachers, families, and comics lovers who are interested in learning about the medium. While some people have found that confusing or frustratingly inconsistent, really it's just a recognition that in the real world, this is all one thing, and an endorsement of what we all do anyway, which is picking and choosing what we like and essentially ignoring the rest. Now everything is technically part of the same continuity, with creators and readers both invited to decide for themselves what 'matters'. This process reached its (perhaps inevitable) climax in 2020's Death Metal event, which officially abolished the separation of continuities with the announcement that 'everything counts'.
SIMPLE COMIC PERSON FULL
The result was a kind of 'hybrid continuity' where the canonicity of any particular story was a bit unclear, but which was still formally a continuation of the N52 rather than another full reboot or reversal. The most notable of these was the Post-Crisis Superman, who (via narrative convolutions not worth delving into) was reintroduced and then 'merged' with the (then-deceased) N52 Superman to take back his place of pre-eminence within the DCU. It was this trend that culminated in 2016 with DC Rebirth, a 'soft' reboot which began the process of formally reintroducing elements of Post-Crisis continuity back into the mainstream DCU. This is technically the continuity that we're still in, although the unpopularity of many of the changes made with the N52, the fan appetite for the return of parts of prior continuities and the already unclear parameters of the reboot resulted, over the following years, in a number of elements of Post-Crisis continuity slowly seeping back into canon. To my knowledge, the only two major exceptions were Batman (whose personal history had actually carried on in an almost unbroken fashion since the 40s, albeit with a number of revisions over the years) and Green Lantern. The New 52 era began in 2011, with the event Flashpoint inaugurating a (near) full reboot of the Post-Crisis DCU, complete with new origins for many of its major characters and teams.
Moreover, because this was the period during which superheroes had their first major explosion of mainstream popularity, the Post-Crisis DCU became the main influence on the various cross-media adaptations that began to emerge, helping to cement this period as the most 'definitive' version of the DCU in the minds of many.
This period has probably the largest share of 'classic' stories for most characters, and the historical scope and interconnectedness of the shared universe made it hugely popular with fans.
In the Pre-Crisis era, many of DC's characters existed independently of one another on alternate Earths - what Crisis did was attempt to streamline continuity by eliminating this 'multiverse' and folding those characters who weren't retired into a single unified DCU, in many cases with a brand new history. The Post-Crisis era encompasses everything between 19, following DC's decision to 'reboot' the universe via Crisis on Infinite Earths. Some very famous stories were written throughout this period (and many more were mined for material by later writers) but much of this material was rendered non-canonical by Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC's first big 'reboot' event. This is when most of the 'big' characters were first developed and encompasses the so-called Golden, Silver and Bronze Ages. The Pre-Crisis era encompasses all of the original DC stories, beginning in 1938 and running through until 1986. I'm sure that someone can provide a more comprehensive timeline that includes stuff like Zero Hour and Convergence, but for a broad overview you only really need to know three main eras: